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by Fyre



Series: A Little Kindness [7]
Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Slow Show - mia_ugly
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22897765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: “Everything all right?” he asked sleepily, as he shuffled into the room.“Mm-hm.” She didn’t turn around. “Sorry, love. Broke a cup. Butterfingers.”She was shaking as she said it and even half-asleep, he could recognise the tremor in her voice.“Trace?”
Series: A Little Kindness [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628107
Comments: 40
Kudos: 136
Collections: Slow Show Metaverse





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [mia_ugly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mia_ugly/gifts).



The sound of something smashing woke Avery with a start.

He squinted at the clock. 3am. Occasionally, Tracy stayed out late, but not tonight. They’d had a quiet one and a curry like they always did in the days before they jetted off to LA. He frowned, sitting up in his bed. A sliver of light was visible along the bottom of his bedroom door, faint enough that it could only be from the kitchen.

Another smaller clatter echoed, broken china being swept up.

He pushed back the covers and got up, yawning. The flat was cool, but he couldn’t be bothered groping about in the dark for his slippers and dressing gown.

The hall outside the bedroom was dark, and as he’d guessed, the kitchen light was on. Tracy was leaning on the counter, the kettle bubbling away behind her. Still in her nightie. Must’ve needed a drink.

“Everything all right?” he asked sleepily, as he shuffled into the room.

“Mm-hm.” She didn’t turn around. “Sorry, love. Broke a cup. Butterfingers.”

She was shaking as she said it and even half-asleep, he could recognise the tremor in her voice.

“Trace?”

She looked over her shoulder and her eyes were all pink and wet. “S’mum,” she whispered.

Avery was around the kitchen island and wrapped her up in his arms in an instant. “What happened?” asked, gathering her closer. Lord, she was _frozen_ , her bare arms a rash of goosebumps. “Is she sick? Did she have another fall?”

Her fingers dug into her back and she was shaking even more, with choked ragged sobs. “Her heart, Susan thinks. Managed to press her alert button, but they’re– they’re still at the hospital. Had to resuscitate her.”

“Oh Christ.” He stroked his hand in warm circles on her back. “D’you want to go? I can drive you up.”

She half nodded, half shook her head, then shivered again.

“How about a cup of tea?” he murmured, rubbing his cheek against her hair. “Get you warmed up?”

She sniffed hard, nodded more surely at that.

The kettle hadn’t boiled yet, so he guided her through to the living room, got her sitting down on the couch and pulled down the knitted blanket – made by her mum – off the back, wrapping it around her in a snug patchwork cocoon.

“Feels like a night for a couple of sugars, doesn’t it?” he murmured, cupping her cold, wet cheek.

“Trying to get me fat, Mr. Fell?”

He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Giving your lads something to hang on to,” he replied. “How about a jammy dodger as well?”

She laughed damply. “Yeah. All right.” Her fingers curled around the edges of the blanket, pulling it closer around her. She looked so small, curled up on the huge, squashy couch, red-nailed toes pale and dangling over the floor.

Avery hurried back to the kitchen, filling the teapot and fetching two of their biggest mugs. While the tea brewed, he rattled around in the cupboards, digging out the biscuit tin, and by the time he returned to Tracy, she’d dried her face on the edge of the blanket.

“There we go,” he murmured, sitting down beside her and setting the biscuit tin on the coffee table. “Madame’s tea.”

She uncurled enough to poke out one hand and claim the mug, cradling to her like an elixir of life.

Avery nabbed a biscuit for each of them, then settled back beside her, watching her with concern. “We can go up in the morning, if you want. Once we know what’s happening.”

“Might have to anyway,” she said and her eyes welled up again. “Christ, Az, I know she’s old, but… but I’m not ready to not have my mum about.”

He put down his cup at once, wrapping his arm around her shoulders instead. “None of that,” he chastised her gently. “Medicine these days does marvels and your mum’s a stubborn old bat. She’s not about to let some heart attack take her, is she?”

Tracy leaned into him, knocking her brow against his. “She better not,” she whispered, nestling against him, “or I’ll bloody kill her.”

“With bells on,” he murmured, rubbing his hand up and down her arm through the blanket.

Tracy nodded and sniffed again.

For a long while, they sat like that. She sipped her tea, his going cold on the table. She even managed a couple of hobnobs on top of the jammy dodger. Always a good sign, when she could manage a hobnob or two.

“This is all bollocks,” she murmured, when her cup was empty and she was all but curled up in his lap.

“I know.” He rubbed his cheek on her hair.

“Bet she’s just doing it for the attention.”

He gave her a warm squeeze. “Like mother, like daughter, eh?”

She poked him in the belly, but only to the first knuckle. “Bugger off.” She took a deep breath, then let it all out. “Fuck me, I’m getting to old for this.”

“Come on,” he murmured. “Come to bed. I know you’re not going to be able to sleep, but a bit of rest’ll help.”

“It’s all right. I can wait up. You go and get some sleep.”

He could hear what she wasn’t saying. The awards ceremony was in a couple of days. They were meant to be packing tomorrow, flying out the next morning. Him turning up with panda-eyes and dragging his feet like a zombie wouldn’t do him any favours, especially not if Gabriel showed up at his suit fitting.

Still, he tilted his head and gave her The Look. It was one he’d practised a lot. It took a lot to make Tracy do something nice for herself and he’d become a master of the pointed stare. Didn’t even have to say anything, when she noticed and groaned.

“I’m not getting a choice, am I?”

“Well, better both of us awake together, than neither of us getting any sleep, worrying ourselves sick, in different rooms,” he pointed out, helping her to her feet. “Anyway, you always complain about the fact I’ve got the better bed. Now, you’re telling me you don’t want to take advantage?”

“Can’t believe people think you’re nice,” she grumbled fondly, as she slipped her arm through his and they padded back down the hall to the bedroom. “You’re such a prat.”

“Pot and kettle, dear,” he retorted, pushing his bedroom door open.

The bed was easily big enough to fit four people at a push – his sister’s kids had made sure of that – so there was plenty of room for them to crawl under the cover and curl up around each other, close as a pair of inverted commas. Avery tucked his knees behind hers and she pulled his arm around her waist, stroking the back of his hand.

It was quiet and dark and the numbers on the clock changed one by one.

“Do you remember that place we had down in Hampstead?” she murmured.

“Mm. The bedsit. That alleged twin bed. You turned me into your second mattress.”

She laughed quietly, squeezing his wrist. “Saved on the heating, though, didn’t it? Huddled like penguins, we did. Mind that bloody spring in the middle of it? D’you remember when it popped through?”

“Remember?” He huffed against her shoulder. “It impaled me!”

He could hear her small, tired smile. “Nicked you. I’ve seen worse from a splinter.”

In the snug warmth of the King-sized bed with the plush eiderdown and Egyptian cotton sheets, he couldn’t help smiling. “Come on a bit since then, haven’t we?”

“Mm.” She stroked his hand again. “Older and all.”

“Because I know that time is always time,” he quoted. “And place is always and only place and what is actual is actual only for one time and only for one place.”

She swatted his hand. “S’too bloody early for that nonsense,” she grumbled, wriggling back against him. When she inhaled a long, deep breath, her ribs pressed back against his chest. “Az?”

“Mm?”

“Thank you.”

In the dark, he dropped a kiss on her cheek. “That’s what friends are for.”

She nodded, pulling his arm more snugly around her, her body relaxing against his. And, not much later, he was relieved when he heard the soft lawnmower rumble of her snoring. He smiled, kissing her fondly on the shoulder, and closed his eyes.

__________________________________________

“I don’t need to go.”

“Don’t be daft,” Tracy said, lobbing a pair of socks into his case. “I’ve got a train ticket booked now and Susan’s Tommy’ll pick me up at the station. You don’t need to worry.”

Avery gave her a rueful smile. “You know I always do.”

She wandered across the room and leaned up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “I know you do, duck, but I can’t have you missing your big night because mum’s got a dodgy heart.” She dropped her head to rest against his shoulder. “It’s only a by-pass. Not like they haven’t done that in their sleep before. It’ll be fine.”

“It’s hardly a big night.” Avery lifted two shirts down from the wardrobe, holding them up for her consideration. She frowned at them, then tugged the sleeve of the blue on. “Odds say we won’t get it.”

“Is it or is it not a night of free plonk and hot young things?”

He laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I think you mean encouragable,” she replied, trotting over to sit on the edge of his bed. “Always one to encourage, me.”

He folded up the shirt in a series of practised folds and laid it into his suitcase. “So which ‘hot young things’ are you encouraging me to eye up this time?”

She leaned back on her hands, swinging her feet. “That lovely lad off the telly. You know. The funny South African lad.”

“Trevor Noah.”

“Mm. Lovely, that one. And those dimples. Makes you wonder if he’s got dimples anywhere else.”

He grinned at her. “Is that the message I’m meant to pass on? Nice to meet you, smashing dimples, how’s your arse?”

She kicked him fondly in the knee. “His arse is _fine_. Nice, round, bounce-a-penny-off kind of business.”

Avery raised an eyebrow. “And how do you know that?”

She waggled her phone at him. “Got google, don’t I?” She sprawled back on the bed. “Y’know, as much as I’m sad to miss a free do, I’m not going to miss the flights.” She made a face at the ceiling. “Travelling isn’t as fun when you’re not going somewhere you chose.”

“I’ll sneak you one of the mini plonk bottles from the flight home,” he offered, closing up the suitcase.

She rolled over, clasping a hand to her chest, eyes wide and fluttery. “Oh, you’re so good to me, Az. Spoiling me with stolen alcohol even a two year old couldn’t get drunk on.”

He threw a spare pair of socks at her. “Oh shush.”

Tracy just grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> Az is quoting T.S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday. Because of course he bloody is at 5am in the morning.


End file.
